ICYMI: Three metro Atlanta stories worth checking out

MyAJC.com provides in-depth coverage of the top stories affecting metro Atlantans. Here are three highlights from this past week. Get more details on myAJC.com by clicking on the links below.

A big water main causes big headaches: Early Wednesday morning, commuters on Buford Highway discovered a stretch of the road was closed. And residents in the area discovered their water was slowing to a trickle or not flowing at all. Within hours, DeKalb County felt the repercussions of a 48-inch water main burst. The break crippled the county’s water system, forcing schools, businesses and government offices to close, and DeKalb was put under a boil-water advisory. On Friday, the water was running again with repairs finished early and the advisory lifted.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan visits employees and hosts a Q&A at the Home Depot store support center on Thursday, March 8, 2018, near Vinings. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Taking on tariffs: Some of Georgia’s top Republican lawmakers, including one of the president’s most prominent backers in the state, pushed back against Donald Trump’s proposal to impose steep tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum. Before the president announced the tariffs on Thursday afternoon, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., said he met privately with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Tuesday morning to urge the administration to adopt “a more targeted approach” to the tariffs. Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, scrambled before the announcement to persuade Trump to change course. They argued the move could prompt trade wars and negate the economic effects of the party’s recently passed tax overhaul. Ryan, who visited a Home Depot support center in metro Atlanta earlier Thursday, told employees, “I actually think that there’s a better way to go after unfair trade practices, and that is to go after them specifically.” Mexico and Canada were spared from the higher tariffs for the moment, while they and the U.S. negotiate for changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

How Facebook posts lead to a courtroom: What began as a disagreement between former spouses that was aired on Facebook escalated into a criminal matter. A mother posted on her private Facebook page her frustration when her ex-husband, a Washington County deputy sheriff, refused her request to pick up medicine for their sick son. One supportive friend referred to the ex-husband with a derogatory acronym. Then the two women wound up being arrested for the online posts. But the warrant signed by the judge was for a charge that itself is unconstitutional. So now the jailed mom has filed a federal lawsuit in the case.